As many of us hoped and expected, Judge Miller rejected the protestor’s ill-founded request to have the fence removed. What was mildly surprising was that she ruled more quickly than she had originally indicated, doing it on Thursday evening, only a handful of hours after hearing arguments. Clearly after looking over the evidence she didn’t need to spend the night thinking it over.

While after reflection I’m not so sure the fence was a good idea (brings to much attention to protestors), particularly at this late date, I do know that the ruling is very good news. It’s an indicator that we have a judge who rules based on the law, not based on some ridiculous emotional pleas and twisted-logic appeals to over-applied aspects of the Constitution. It also will probably have the effect of lighting a fire under the City of Berkeley to make a settlement with the University. The more and more evidence there is that the judge is going to rule in the University’s favor, the more and more likely it is that the COB has to settle if they want to get any concessions.

Speaking of which, the word on the street is that the COB and the University have been having closed door negotiations this week and that a settlement is likely. No word on an expected timeline.

This just in: At 1:30 this afternoon (8/30) Judge Miller heard an hour’s worth of argument about whether this new fence breaks the injunction. At the end of those arguments she indicated that she’ll give a ruling within 24 hours. To me that means tomorrow morning, tomorrow mid-day at the latest.

Maybe it is just a judge thing that they don’t rule on anything right away but it seems ridiculous to me that she couldn’t say “Look, they haven’t cut anything down; it’s temporary; I said temporary fencing could go up for safety reasons back in March when it was asked in regards to the additional seismic testing; your request to have the fencing removed is denied.”

How hard is that?

In any case, I suspect this is a just a judge thing that they don’t rule on anything right away (probably because it would give the appearance of already having had made up one’s mind). I will say this: if she rules in favor of the tree-sitters, I’ll be VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY worried about the actual case later in September.

Checkout the below videos for some details on the goings on at the Oak Grove:

• YouTube video produced by Tree-Sitter support group(note that you’re going to hear a LOT of bad language).
• KVTU’s evening report
• CBS evening report

Things are a lot more nasty there than I thought or understood from the articles on the subject, although to some degree they’re showing the 30 seconds of a scuffle amongst hours of people sitting around doing nothing.

The videos also give the best pictures of the nature of the fence. I keep going back and forth. Now I’m thinking they’re not very stoutly put in the ground. That fence was swaying all over the place and without much force. A tightly strunk (and hence well anchored) fence wouldn’t do that.

No word yet on the request to block the fence in the Alameda county courts.

There are a lot of definitions of the word temporary. Personally, I think the fence installed around the Oak Grove stretches the definition. (You can see some pictures at these two articles: Scout and SFGate). I would not consider a chain-link fence with poles that have been pounded in the ground and takes over a day to install “temporary”. It even looks as though it will be topped with some sort of barbed wire. About the only thing one could do to make it more permanent is to pour concrete pilings for the posts.

This is all of course good news. The more stout and permanent the better, I say.

One last note, it seems unclear on what the police policy is going to be on the passing of supplies to the tree-sitters. While e-mail communication from the University seemed to make it clear that they wouldn’t interfere, according to the articles, the police have been arresting those who have tried to pass supplies to the tree-sitters even when they are ourside the fence barrier. Perhaps they’re not going to take any guff while the fence is being constructed, but once it is, they won’t be on a 24-hour watch. It could also be that there is a lack of communication between the officers on site and the University plans. Of course I’m all for cutting off all supplies, but I think clarity on the policy and it being caried out as stated is important as well. There’s no reason to give the protestors any ammunition to work with.

UPDATE: It appears the protestors are going to try and get an injunction against the fence today in court. Come back later today for updates.

In a stronger move than I would have expected, this morning the Berkeley police put up a fence around the trees where the tree-sitters are wasting their lives away. I’ve not been able to get a hold of any pictures of the fence so I don’t know what kind of fence we’re talking about. Is this one of those VERY temporary fences that can’t even be climbed because they fall over from the weight? Or is it something that is staked into the ground? I think that makes a big difference as to what kind of impact it’ll have.

The tree-sitters are of course moaning about this, saying it violates the court injunction with their usual dubious legal logic. They also say that this is a way to “starve” the protestors out of the trees. Somehow I doubt this will be the case because I can’t imagine a fence they could build in a day that could prevent the passing of supplies when no one was looking (and I doubt the police are planning on a 24-hour watch).

My guess is that this is a “protest barrier” to prevent incidents at the games and not much more. Perhaps it is a move to prevent more protestors from moving into the trees, although, again, sans a 24-hour police watch, I don’t see how they can effectively do that. If anything it’ll do more to protect the protestors from angry fans than harm them with the possible exception of not allowing their on-the-ground protest at the games to be as cohesive as it would be.

I’ll post pictures if I can find them.

UPDATE (at 11:00 AM): An e-mail that was sent out today to the states the following:
This morning a temporary barrier was placed around the trees that are currently occupied by protesters. Based on the UC Police Department’s analysis and recommendations we decided that this would be a necessary and prudent step to ensure the safety of game-day fans and the protesters. We must emphasize that this is not in any way part of an effort to forcibly remove protesters from the grove. We have reluctantly accepted their unauthorized presence since last December, and while we will continue to evaluate that policy of tolerance we expect it to continue until the lawsuits are resolved.